What Does Luke 17:1 Mean?
And he said to the disciples, It is impossible that the snares will not come, but woe to the one through whom they come!
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come!THE KEY
A stumbling block is also a snare, and the verse traces its harm through the person by whom it reaches someone else.
THE MEANING
Stumbling causes enter the life you move through; their presence is unavoidable. The warning still falls on the person through whom they reach others: the obstacle’s inevitability does not erase the weight of carrying it into someone else’s path.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The fact that stumbling is unavoidable does not make the person who brings it to another harmless or blameless.
THE ROOT
σκάνδαλα
skándala
GROWS FROM
σκανδαλ-
skandal-
A snare, trap trigger, or cause of stumbling.
“the snares” in this verse is skándala. “Offences” can sound like personal insults, while the Greek also carries the image of a snare or stumbling cause. Its word family names both the obstacle and the act of making someone stumble, revealing how a fall can reach another person through someone else.
ALSO GROWS
skándalon: A snare, stumbling block, or cause of ruin.
σκάνδαλον
This singular form makes the trap imagery in the verse’s “offences” visible.
skandalízō: To cause someone to stumble or be ensnared.
σκανδαλίζω
The verb shows the other side of the same root: not just the obstacle, but the act of bringing about another’s fall.
THE PATTERN
Stumbling obstacles may be present, but the person who places or carries them into another’s path remains accountable.
You shall not curse the deaf, nor set a stumbling block before the blind; but you shall stand in awe of your God. I am the LORD.Woe to the world for its snares! For they must come; but woe to that man through whom the snare comes!So let us no longer judge one another, but judge this instead, that no one sets a stone to strike against, or a trap, in his brother's way.THE THREAD
So let us no longer judge one another, but judge this instead, that no one sets a stone to strike against, or a trap, in his brother's way.The Greek behind “occasion to fall” is σκάνδαλον (skándalon), the same word translated “offences” in Luke. Romans places it beside a word for an obstacle, letting you see both images at once: the obstruction in the path and the snare that can bring someone down.
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